Four years in Upper Burma

by W. R. Winston

Coming now to the subject belonging to the second half of this chapter,

THE FALSE MISSIONARY IDEAL,

I wish to deal with a matter, partly suggested by the recital of the sufferings of Judson just related, upon which something needs to be said. It has often appeared to me that there still lingers, in the minds of many people, a very erroneous ideal of missions and missionaries, which it is quite time to do away with. A recent writer has aptly expressed the notion to which I refer in these words:—

“The more barren the missionary’s lot of all comfort, the greater the degree of self-denial and privation that can be encountered, the better. What he has really undertaken is to carry the Gospel to the destitute, and so to live as to secure the longest, fullest and most complete career of usefulness along that line. But this is not the view of the malcontents; they regard him as a spectacle, an ascetic, an object lesson in self-denial. It is not so much what he does as what he suffers. The chief end is the impression which he makes on men’s minds by his self-mortification.”

This may seem at first sight rather a strong putting of the case, but I think it will be apparent, as we proceed, that it is nearer the popular notion than the reader may at first be prepared to admit. The first witness I will cite is John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides. If the reader has not yet read his book, let me urge him to do so without delay. In the earlier days of his missionary life on the island of Tanna, he passed through a period of almost unexampled trial from the brutal savagery of the natives, owing to the fact that there was no such thing as law, justice, or protection of any kind to be obtained. His trials were such as few men could have endured, and lived. The people were utterly uncivilised, bloodthirsty, quarrelsome, superstitious and vindictive. Human life was scarcely of any value among them, and they were cannibals. His life was attempted times without number. Other missionaries and native Christian teachers were murdered, and done to death by them one way or another, and how he escaped death amongst them seems nothing short of miraculous.

At length a crisis more acute than usual came, and the wicked and superstitious malice of the Tannese broke out against him to such a degree that he was driven out of the island, all his property was looted, and he barely escaped with his life. In his distress he went over to Australia to recruit his health, which must have needed it after such a strain. Of what occurred there I quote his own statement:—

“Some unsophisticated souls who read these pages will be astonished to learn, but others who know more of the heartless selfishness of human creatures will be quite prepared to hear, that my leaving Tanna was not a little criticised, and a great deal of nonsense was written, even in Church magazines, about the breaking up of the Mission. All such criticism came, of course, from men who were themselves destitute of sympathy, and who probably never endured one pang for Jesus in all their comfortable lives. Conscious that I had, to the last inch of life, tried to do my duty, I left all results in the hands of my only Lord, and all criticisms to His unerring judgment. Hard things also were occasionally spoken to my face. One dear friend, for instance, said, ‘You should not have left. You should have stood at the post of duty till you fell. It would have been to your honour, and better for the cause of the Mission, had you been killed at the post of duty like the Gordons and others.’

“I replied, ‘I regard it as a greater honour to live and to work for Jesus than to be a self-made martyr. God knows that I did not refuse to die; for I stood at the post of duty, amid difficulty and danger, till all hope had fled, till everything I had was lost, and till God, in answer to prayer, sent a means of escape. I left with a clear conscience, knowing that in doing so I was following God’s leading, and serving the Mission too. To have remained longer would have been to incur the guilt of self-murder in the sight of God.’”

These sentiments, especially the words I have italicised, do honour alike to Paton’s devotion and to his common sense, and they are a just rebuke of a very false ideal.